Specialist software helps brewer satisfy thirst for BC worldwide

SABMiller is one of the world’s largest breweries with more than 200 beer brands and 70,000 employees in over 75 countries. It is also one of the world’s largest bottlers of Coca-Cola products. Its portfolio of brands includes premium international beers such as Pilsner Urquell, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Miller Genuine Draft and Grolsch, as well as leading local brands like Aguila, Castle, Miller Lite and Tyskie.

Its in-house business continuity (BC) team has responsibility for the continuity of SABMiller’s operations, which span six continents. Its strategy was to implement an effective BC strategy in the UK and treat it as a test bed for the rollout of a BCM programme worldwide. It found the ideal tool in Sungard Availability Services’ award-winning LDRPS® – part of the CMS suite of business continuity management (BCM) software solutions.

Disaster Recovery Manager Adam Wallace-Scott explains, “I have a global remit and a small BC team but Sungard’s BCM software is helping me push business continuity out to a worldwide audience. I see LDRPS® as an enabler.”

When Adam Wallace-Scott joined SABMiller as Disaster Recovery Manager he found its BC team was relying on general purpose Microsoft Word and Excel software to maintain its plans, which simply isn’t enough for serious BCM. He explains, “I discovered our Continuity Manager loses a couple of months a year manually updating spreadsheets and documents. With a huge responsibility resting on the shoulders of just a handful of BC professionals, this was clearly not a productive use of her valuable time.” Recognising that specialist BCM software was the solution, Adam Wallace-Scott researched the market for the best option. Among the products considered was Sungard AS’s LDRPS®, which guides BC managers through the planning process and has a 20-year pedigree. He soon found that, “LDRPS® was streets ahead of everything else available. It is thoroughly tried and tested and user feedback on the latest version in particular was very positive, with comments that it is more user-friendly, highly customisable and intuitive to use.”

The scalability of LDRPS® was an important factor in the purchase decision and with a global DR remit, Adam Wallace-Scott opted for the Enterprise model. His experience since has vindicated that original decision. “I firmly believe you can do anything you want with LDRPS® as long as you are realistic and are prepared to invest some time upfront. It is a complex product, which is why it has immense capabilities. But from the start I could see it is a great, very useable tool – not something that would sit on a shelf gathering dust.”

“I have a global remit and a small BC team but Sungard’s BCM software is helping me push business continuity out to a worldwide audience.” Adam Wallace-Scott, Disaster Recovery Manager, SABMiller

The decision made, Adam WallaceScott recalls, “Sungard was extremely proactive in helping us get the software up and running at very short notice and the support that’s available is phenomenal.” SABMiller supplemented LDRPS® with two additional modules, BIA Professional – which automates much of the time-consuming Business Impact Analysis process – and the two-way global communications system Notifind. A third module, Vendor Assessment, which evaluates suppliers’ BC provision, is also under consideration.

Adam Wallace-Scott notes, “The consolidation of our data into one central database is already a very big win. Knowing that everything – call trees, crisis management plans and recovery plans – is stored securely and easily accessible gives us great peace of mind. When you enter a piece of information once such as a phone number, it automatically updates all relevant documentation, saving hours of time and reducing the very real risk of human error.”

He points out another unexpected bonus, “As people have begun to appreciate what this software can do, there has been a huge appetite for it internally – it’s proving to be an easy sell.”

As the man responsible for driving adoption of LDRPS® worldwide, Adam Wallace-Scott appreciates the many forms of support available from Sungard AS, which he describes as “extraordinary”. As well as the ten consultancy days included in the purchase price, he has taken advantage of numerous free webex sessions, online training videos, face-to-face training workshops, as well as webbased and telephone support, to help him exploit LDRPS® to its full potential.

He remarks, “Sungard has got the support absolutely right with all the different support channels. Quite rightly, some of these are chargeable if you need something bespoke but so much of the training is free and easily accessible.” He adds, “As for the account management, I’ve found it superb – and then some.”

“Sungard was extremely proactive in helping us to get the software up and running at very short notice and the support that’s available is phenomenal.” Adam Wallace-Scott, Disaster Recovery Manager, SABMiIller

Business problem

With 70,000 employees in over 75 countries, SABMiller is one of the world’s largest brewers. Tasked with implementing an effective business continuity management (BCM) programme to protect its people, breweries, production plants and distribution networks worldwide from business interruption, SABMiller’s BC team recognised this could only be achieved with the help of purposedesigned BCM software.